


Working Title

by girl_wonder



Category: Brick (2005)
Genre: Character of Color, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_wonder/pseuds/girl_wonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the Pin, the upper crust enjoyed a different kind of pastime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working Title

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/gifts).



> Thanks so, so much to nextian and tassoss for the beta. You two are both just so incredible.
> 
> I'm going to steal my recipient's standard disclaimer and say: if i have written something problematic/oppressive to a marginalized group that you find hurtful, please please please don't think twice about telling me. i will never spew hate at you, will never attack you, and i will always thank you and make the change.

Kara's not dumb enough to think that when it all goes down, there'll be a fade to black easy way out for everyone. She thinks maybe Brendan does think that, because when she saw him he couldn't think past the moment he was in. He was living clue to clue, trying to superglue the puzzle of Emily back together. He wanted to know, now he knows.

He's worse than the cat that curiosity killed.

Kara's more practical. Curtain goes down, actors take off their makeup, put away their props and go home, where there's still bills to pay, still a fight with the boyfriend, still a cat to feed. _End scene_ doesn't end anything, not really.

*****

"He was with you at rehearsal," the bull says, leaning forward on his hands. "All night."

Kara nods. "Everyone saw him."

"Is he in the play?" the bull asks. He is a fat man, with flesh under his neck that jiggles every time he talks. His partner doesn't say anything.

"No," Kara says. "I already told you. He was helping me with my method acting."

She doesn't shift at all, doesn't look away, but doesn't look too focused either. She practiced in front of the C-wing bathroom mirror before coming in.

"He ask you to lie for him?"

Kara laughs. "No. I don't have to lie. He was at rehearsal. Ask anyone else in the cast."

*****

Partway through the Em and Tug and Pin and brick fiasco, Laura had been backstage after a dress rehearsal.

Kara made a habit of being unsurprised by anything, but her makeup had huge sloping lines for her eyebrows. She had a feeling she looked more surprised than she was.

"I want to try setting up something," Laura had said, vague, but specific enough with her tone.

"I set up things," Kara said. She began removing her makeup, watching herself in the mirror, cotton swab in hand.

Laura reached over and said, "Here, let me."

"You know how this might end, right?" Kara asked. She and Laura had never been too close, but that was probably why Laura had come to her.

"I know I'm offering you an opportunity." Laura stroked the cotton along Kara's jaw. It was too maternal for either of them, even cut with the caustic scent of makeup remover. "I'm not the kind of girl that gets dirty."

"Let me chew on it," Kara had said, taking the cotton back.

*****

"I hope you don't expect a tribute for your testimony," Brendan says. "I'm fresh out of the Pin's party favors."

She taps a cigarette out of her pack and holds it between her fingers. "You were at rehearsal that night. It doesn't take a Tony to convince the bulls they're sniffing in the wrong direction."

"You're good," Brendan says. "But don't feed me that line. You want something and I don't like owing you for something I didn't ask to buy."

"I want to start up the games again." Kara holds the unlit cigarette in his direction until he snaps a lighter, allowing her to cup her hand around the flame. It's an intimate act, her hand close to his, but not quite touching.

"You don't need me for that," he says, snapping the lighter closed. When he takes a step back, he's watching her from underneath his bangs.

"Maybe I like your company. The games wouldn't be the same without you." She has perfected the art of smoking without inhaling. It tastes bitter, but doesn't break her voice. She thinks Brendan's the only one who ever caught her at it. He's the only one who ever caught her at a lot of things.

"Pull the other one, sister. You don't want my kind of company around the big fish you reel at your games." There is a bruise fading on his face and his glasses are bent at a broken angle.

Kara shrugs, allows the strap of her dress to slide down her arm a little. "I need Brain to run my numbers."

Brendan narrows his eyes. "Brain's his own. He can make any decision he wants."

"But you've got his ear." Casually, Kara pulls up her strap, watching Brendan's eyes follow her fingers. "I don't need you pulling his strings, but I do want to know you won't stand in the way if he says yes."

"You'll have to pay him fair," Brendan says. He pushes his glasses up his nose. "And keep him out of the room."

Tapping the ash off the end of her cigarette, Kara says, "I don't want my numbers man _in_ the room."

"Ok," Brendan shrugs. "Pitch it to him. If it sticks I'll keep my peace."

"Ok," Kara says, mocking the way he says it. She turns to go inside the theater.

"It wasn't right what happened to Dode," Brendan says. He says it quietly, and she knows that with all that's not right about what happened with Emily and the Pin and Tug, what happened with Dode can't make him burn like it should.

"We've got a deal, Brendan. Now's when you forget about tilting at windmills." Kara shuts the door behind her.

*****

The games are older than she is. She was brought into them when she was only a junior high cheerleader and they'd been going on at least a year more than that.

When the Pin came in, the games went out of style, and something different was more popular, something with powder and dancing and drinking.

Now that the Pin's out, Kara doesn't want to try her hand at bricks and Pie Shop rats, but she does think maybe the upper crust needs some of the old to feel new again. Which means that she wants to try making the games new again, new stakes, new buy in, new invite list.

She needs a new hook to start pulling marlins and she thinks she has it.

*****

"The games," Brain says, nervously. He doesn't leave the wall much and doesn't like going to dark places that aren't the library. She'd meet him, but he came to her first.

She raises an eyebrow.

"There's a rumor," he says, eyes huge behind his glasses.

"I could use a good numbers man," she says.

"I figured." He shuffles in his backpack and pulls out an old fashioned ledger. When he snaps it open on her vanity, she sees some familiar names in blue ballpoint pen.

"You want to deal," Kara says. It's not a question. "What percentage?"

"Thirty," Brain says. He points to the totals at the bottom, scrawled in messy, sophomore handwriting. "That's what Crash was getting."

"Crash killed the games when he was running numbers." Kara leans over towards him, letting him see how serious she was. "I'll give you twenty and a bonus for every shark you catch."

"Twenty five, a bonus for sharks and any patsies." He sounds nervous and certain at the same time.

"I got not kick with that," she says.

Brain is fiddling again, and she takes the Rubik's Cube from inside his backpack, her fingers brushing up against notebooks and a day planner and his wallet. She mixes it thoroughly, twisting until there aren't any same color rows.

"I'll send you a hall pass when I need you," Kara says, dropping the cube back into his backpack. "Don't drift too far."

He leaves quickly, and she thinks she might see Brendan in the shadows before the door shuts. She doesn't check.

******

Kara was fourteen when she met Brendan. Back then he was running drugs and money for a small time high school dealer. Nothing harder than mary jane, which was all she wanted to score.

He said he could use a friend like her, someone who had an in with the games crowd. She didn't tell him that she could use him, partly because she didn't know how she wanted to use him yet, partly because after a year of games, she knew how to hold her cards to her chest.

*****

Brain is fiddling with the pink hall pass she'd sent, and in the corner, Brendan is leaning against the wall, trying to disappear into his jacket. Kara isn't sure why he's here, but it's bad form to look like she didn't demand his presence. Knowing her too well is one of Brendan's worst faults.

She has the set designer here and the leader of the jazz band. Mister Karls thinks they're planning the next black box production.

"I want the games to start in two weeks. We're going to need a set, we're going to need some mood, but mostly we need people." She lists them off, tapping her pen on a notepad. "Servers, people to run the tables, bookies."

There's a pause. Brendan is the first to say something.

"What's your hook?"

"We're also going to need contestants." Kara smiles. Vanna White is too gaudy. A real reveal needs anticipation, not a sparkling dress. "We're doing a blind race."

Even Brendan looks surprised by that.

*****

This is how she used Brendan: he wanted to get together. She wanted his client list. She got what she wanted, he didn't.

Still, when he looks at her, it seems like he's still stuck on that moment where she almost gave in. Not because it would have been easier, but because she wanted to. Once upon a time, it would have been nice to be loved the way he loved Emily.

Creepy, a little too much for her, but also nice.

*****

She and Brain are sitting in her dressing room, all dim mood lighting cut by the bright white lights around her makeup mirror.

Brain slaps down a list. "These are their speeds on a 100 meter, but I need their grades, too. You want to give good odds to someone who's fast and _smart_."

"Break it down for me." Kara pulls out a nail file, points to the list of speeds. "This should be enough to do odds."

"If you want odds that will actually make the house a penny, then you also want to see who's the smartest." Brain's fingers tap against his knee, one two three, one two three.

"Smart and fast means..." Kara evens out the curve of her thumb nail.

"You want to give good odds to smart and fast kids, then you want to give worse odds to the kids who aren't likely to win. Some people will bet on them on the off chance that they'll win, others will stick with the safe bets."

"I want it interesting." Kara glances at him, with a slight frown. "Interesting enough to chum the waters for the poker afterwards."

One two three, one two three. Brain nods. "Yeah, I can't promise a Seabiscuit, but we can make it interesting."

"I'll con the grades, get them to you by third period." Dismissively, she gestures to the door. "I expect to be well into the green in this operation."

"Interesting and green." Brain drums one two three on the door handle, then lets himself out.

*****

"You're an operator," Dode had said. "And you're Em's friend. You. You know what to do."

She hadn't corrected him.

"Tell me again what you saw," Kara had said, soothing. She patted the seat next to her. "Sit and spell it for me."

*****

This is how you get people to the games. You tell them that they aren't on the list.

Brain is calculating beside her, the calculator almost silent. Every few moments, he writes down something.

"Alright," he says, finally. "I have the odds."

The set designer said they should make it a chalkboard: old fashioned, retro chic. So she hands the list to one of the bookies and watches him write the odds up on the board.

White, A. 4/1  
Perez, K. 6/3  
Hernandez, Z. 9/1

"Classy," Brendan says.

She doesn't turn, knows he's watching her, not the board. The way you control a room isn't by letting it control you.

"They all volunteered, Brendan." Twenty names. She could have had more, but she wanted some people to know they didn't make the cut.

Twenty is enough to make a good profit, too, Brain says.

"Like Dode did?" Brendan asks.

"Yeah, like he did. Consent means you can say no," she says, quoting their Health teacher's nasal accent.

He pushes up, away from the column, walks over to her. They're almost the same height, but she's usually sitting when they talk, he's usually looming. When she's in heels and standing, he can look her in the eye.

She runs a hand down the suit jacket he's wearing.

"Boy cleans up nice," she says.

"Hands off, sister," he says, but doesn't move away.

*****

Her first games, she was a server. Walked around with a tray full of drinks, a little dimebag for anyone who wanted to partake.

Her second games, she was a dealer at the poker table - Crash had noticed how quick her fingers were.

Her sixth games, she was a contestant. Odds weren't in her favor, but she was the one who came back first, the head of the school's mascot in one hand, spray paint in the other.

"Girl can _run_ ," Brad had crowed. And Kara had smiled at him, smart enough to not smash his nose in for claiming her victory like it was his.

She was also smart enough to not take him up on his offer of a ride to the after party.

*****

Two freak out as soon as she puts the blindfolds on; they had good odds, too, a second string track runner and a member of the girls' swim team.

One trips as soon as she fires the starter's pistol. He falls and takes down two others with him. That's still fifteen.

The mall is completely dark and one of the upper crust starts it first, the hooting, the howling, like the contestants have the dogs of hell on their heels. A camera films real time in night vision and it's playing on a big screen HD tv in the window of an electronics store.

She had to pay off the security guard and the assistant manager of the store. She had to pay more than she wanted to, enough to make them believe that a bunch of spoiled rich kids couldn't make _that_ much of a mess.

Brendan is quietly judgmental behind her.

*****

Even with how wrapped up Emily had made Brendan and Jerry, Emily had never really been a ping on Kara's radar. She didn't exactly dislike her, but she never really liked her, either.

So when Em came by after she broke up with Brendan, Kara was the most surprised.

"I need somewhere Brendan won't be looking for me," Emily said.

Blonde hair up in a messy bun, smelling of strawberry shampoo, Emily had looked a little too moll to be playing the games she was, but Kara knew better than most how much you could hide behind innocence.

"You can help us paint the set," Kara said, gesturing with her hand.

"I need people Bren can't pay off to spy on me," Emily said, quietly. She was fiddling with a notebook, snapping at the elastic band and cover.

Leaning back, Kara relaxed into her seat.

"The kind of friends that Jerry was?" Kara asked. "Because you know I roll with my own crowd."

Emily tucked the notebook away and began fiddling with her skirt, folding it between her fingers at the creases. "Yeah, the kind of friends Jerry was."

"I can invite you to some shindigs, maybe. See how you last with the sugar," Kara turned back towards the stage.

"Sugar?" Emily had asked, her hair almost white in the dim light.

"The top of the crust," Kara explained. "Sugar."

"Oh." Emily was silent, and on stage two people fought and kissed and fought again.

"You'll want something for it," Emily said. "I mean. What do you want for it?"

"Don't worry about it," Kara said. "You'll know."

*****

The races are over and there's only cleanup left. An after party is happening at Brad Brammish's house. Drunk and high rich kids, delighted at having seen scared, overconfident, thrill seeking, popularity whores run blindfolded through the mall, and the small freshman won, against the odds, but that's a little bit why she pays Brain such a good cut.

Casually, she is watching Brain's hands as he counts out the bills. The biggest draw was the race and it'll be hard to top, but she already has a few ideas. A circus, or a burlesque show.

"Did you detect what needed detecting?" she asks. The backroom for staff is bathed florescent white, but the folding chairs are more comfortable than expected. The ordered bills look clean against stained beige table.

She doesn't need to point her comment at Brendan. Brain glances between them without skipping a number.

"How you sleep at night?" Brendan says. "No, didn't parse that one."

"Take your cut," she says when Brain has the money stacked. Everyone else has already been paid, and it's nice to know that big pile is for her. It's nicer to know that this is all anyone will be whispering about in homeroom.

Brain folds it and tucks it into his bag. "Nice business," he stutters, then leaves, Converse sneakers squeaking on the tile floor.

Kara looks at Brendan from under her eyelashes.

"I'll drop you off," she says. It's not a question, they're the only two left. From the way he's been slouching all night, people have been assuming he's her security. He'd be worth it, if he'd take a penny of her money.

"Yeah, ok," he says.

She tucks the money into her jacket pocket. It's a short pea coat, accenting the retro chic feel of her outfit. Costumes have to match the set, after all.

Taking his elbow, she leads him out to the empty expanse of the mall's parking lot.

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," she tells him.

Brendan snorts, a sharp exhalation of air. "Stick to using your own lines, they suit you better."

"Then I still think we've got potential." She doesn't look at him, but can feel his shrug through his arm.

"Yeah, maybe."

He isn't saying no, and Kara isn't sure what she wants out of him this round, isn't even sure she wants anything. It'll come to her.

*****

end


End file.
